There it sat, resting in my mail box Thursday afternoon -- a simple envelope with a strange return address that was about to make my day. Enclosed was a check for $100, winnings on a calendar raffle my grandparents in Pennsylvania enter us in every…

It couldn't have came at a better time, either. It may help save my summer.

While most people are on the Atkins diet, my family is on the Grass diet -- as in we need to put a lawn in this summer, so we are basically skipping two meals a day to afford the new grass, which hopefully will have some nutritional value when it finally does come in.

That hundred bucks will buy us at least three blades of grass, or maybe pay for one square inch of top soil to be delivered. We'd like to put a deck on too, but I refuse to eat Top Ramen noodles every day from now until mid-July in order to come up with the cash to do so.

It's amazing how the budgeting process differs so wildly between people.

My wife -- who deals with budgets every day at work -- put together an entire spending plan for the summer to pay for the projects and still have the financial freedom to add parmesan cheese to those Top Ramen noodles once a week. I took a look at the plan, and immediately noticed a few discrepancies -- no money allocated for the satellite bill, no "discretionary" (i.e. beer) money and absolutely no cash set aside for unforeseen emergencies, like a new fly rod or a round of golf. It simply wasn't realistic, I told her, to expect me to go a summer without any one of those things.

We talked about priorities and finances at length, and she brainwashed me into thinking that watching PBS with some ice water was more fiscally responsible than watching the Stanley Cup playoffs on ESPN with a frosty mug of my favorite microbrew in hand.

By June, instead of chanting, "Let's Go Flyers" in my living room with my 3-year-old daughter (like every father should), I'll be analyzing Charlie Rose's latest interview or the upcoming action on Masterpiece Theatre.

Sweet. Just what I was hoping for this summer. Suddenly, gravel and mud instead of grass didn't sound that bad to me.

On my way to work Friday morning, I kept wondering what we were going to do with that unexpected $100. My gas light came on (as I hear a voice that sounds like my mom's when I was 16 say "Never let it get below a quarter tank,") so I pulled in and paid $40 for a tank.

"Thank God for big American trucks and SUVs and their enormous gas-guzzling tanks," I remind myself every time my wife or I fill up with gas these days. It would be cheaper to just go out and buy drugs than to fill up my tank these days.

With gas rising toward that $2 a gallon price, that $100 will fill up my tank twice -- providing just enough mileage to get to my favorite fishing hole a couple of times.

One of those trips planned for this summer will be my daughter's first fishing trip, so that $100 bill will stay with me and my wife forever.

Some money is priceless.

Casey Ressler (valleylife@frontiersman.com) is the Valley Life editor. He swore off cheap beer and Top Ramen after college, but he still has an affinity for Chef Boy-R-Dee ravioli.